Gary Wilson is something of a tortured snooker soul and beating a string of top players to reach a final last month has done little to ease his pain.
The Tyneside Terror had a disappointing second half of last season, really struggling for results and speaking openly about how down he has been on his performances.
The 40-year-old won the Scottish Open in 2022 and defended it the following year, then claimed the ’24 Welsh Open, so in terms of success it has been a great spell of his career, but not so much in terms of satisfaction.
After defeat to Shaun Murphy in this year’s Masters, Wilson declared that his ‘game’s shot’ and he can’t shake that feeling.
Beating Murphy, Judd Trump, John Higgins and Mark Allen before missing out on the title by one frame in Wuhan seemed like a turning point, but that isn’t the case.
‘The performances were okay, but I’ll be totally honest nothing’s really changed,’ Wilson told Metro. ‘There’s no revelation there, no light bulb moment or anything. I’m not trying to be negative in any way, but nothing’s changed.
‘The positives are obvious. It was a good run, of course, the money, the ranking points, you would take the final before you get there. But once you’re in that position, to lose 10-9, obviously I’m going to be bitterly disappointed.’
Clearly the quality in his game is still there, but it is a lack of confidence, comfort and control that is frustrating the three-time ranking event winner, feeling that he is so rarely producing his best stuff.
‘I know deep down, I’m capable of a good run,’ he said. ‘But I’m just as capable of having no run again for a long time or maybe go on a run again soon. I just don’t know. Everything’s in the lap of the gods with my game.’
‘I can’t remember the last time I felt really, really good’
On when he last felt how he would like to feel at the table, he said: ‘Long ago. A long, long time ago! I can’t even remember how long ago. Honestly, it’s getting to that point. I can’t remember how long ago I felt good.
‘I have been struggling for long, long periods of my career. Most of my career, I would say, if I’m being totally honest. And it comes to a point where you’ve got to treat it more as a job because you’re not really enjoying it, you know?
‘I can’t really remember the last time I felt really, really good. And it’s even shown in practice now. I’ve just had a game and I felt embarrassed for most of it. I was just struggling and was just like, gosh, I can’t even do it in practice.
‘It’s just frustrating. It’s a constant battle, really, but there’s enough of a game there still, thankfully, that I’m doing decent. It’s just so frustrating when you know what you’re capable of and you’re not fulfilling that.’
‘I’m just fudging around and trying to put the embarrassment on the backburner a little bit.’
‘You just feel like you don’t know what to do at times’
The Masters in January appeared to be a low point, when he said after a 6-3 loss to the Magician: ‘It’s been that bad for that long. My game’s shot. My cue action’s shot. You’re just hoping for things all the time and that’s not my mentality. But I think more worryingly is I’ve known for the last few years that it’s on a steady decline.
‘I’ve been getting around it here and there, and showing bits of what I can do, and managing to win three tournaments for goodness’ sake. It’s great, but I feel deep down it’s just getting worse.’
Wilson made a century and three more 50+ breaks in that game, losing to the eventual champion, so to onlookers it may not have seemed disastrous, but he felt as bad as ever with his game.
‘At the Masters I was embarrassed,’ he remembers. ‘I was just so bad and putting up no kind of fight, no kind of performance, just feeling so low about the game.
‘It’s the second biggest tournament in the game and I’m completely in the bin. But not for the want of trying, you know? So you just feel like you don’t know what to do at times.’
Despite his torment, Wilson has written his name into snooker history in recent years by racking up three ranking titles, sitting alongside names like Paul Hunter and James Wattana on that tally.
Where his name will end up in the record books was naturally a motivation for him, but he is so frustrated with his level of performance that he can only see disappointment with how his career will end.
‘You want to do as best you can, try your best and play as good as you feel you can play to fulfil your potential,’ he said.
‘Then naturally you’re going to think, right I’m going to be in the record books for some reason. I’m going to be up there for whatever it is, titles or 147s or you could go down in history as one of the top 20, 30, 50 players in the world or whatever.
‘But honestly, just because I’ve felt so down about how I’ve played generally in my career, I’ve kind of given up on them sort of things. I’m a bit bitter about it, if that makes sense. I’m bitter to myself about it.
‘I’ve kind of given up on them aspirations and it’s a bit depressing, you know. Wherever it does end up, I’ll think back and go, I could have been better than that. I think it’s going to go that way. I hope it doesn’t, I have got plenty of years left, but it is going that way at the minute. I’m underperforming so much at the moment.’
It is a sad story as Wilson remains one of the best players in the world, ranked 16th after his Wuhan run, but cannot garner any enjoyment from the game he plays so well – even if it is not as well as he would like.
‘I do get taken the wrong way by a lot of people, but I’m just honest,’ he said. ‘It’s never meant to come across negative or bad. I’m just not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.
‘Some of the other players, maybe they are scared to say exactly how they feel because they might feel it could have a negative impact on their game or when they next play certain players. I’m at the stage, as I say, I’m a bit bitter about the performances and to an extent I don’t care, I really don’t care.’